Lost Boy, Lost Girl: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

by Peter Straub (Author) "Nancy Underhill's death had been unexpected, abrupt-a death like a slap in the face..." (more)
Key Phrases: Michigan Street, Sherman Park, Joseph Kalendar (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
WINNER OF THE BRAM STOKER AWARD

“lost boy lost girl may be the best book of [Peter Straub’s] career.”
–STEPHEN KING

“EERIE, UNNERVING, AND CONCISE . . .
DARK AND SURPRISINGLY MOVING.”
–The Miami Herald


“A lost boy and a lost girl, a serial killer and a haunted house, a suicide and a kidnapping–Straub’s masterful tale of ultrahorror is all that and a bag of chips!”
–Entertainment Weekly (The Must List)

“[A] wonderful webwork of a book . . . It’s funny, and heartwarming, and genuinely scary.”
–NEIL GAIMAN

“GENUINELY CREEPY.”
–The New York Times Book Review


Product Description
A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son- fifteen-year-old Mark Underhill-vanishes. His uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this horrible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mother's suicide, Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement with the echoes of a long-hidden true-life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (September 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449149919
• ISBN-13: 978-0449149911
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,288 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Ghostly Novel Of Horror And Hope, December 19, 2004

By	Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Tim Underhill, a novelist living in Manhattan, receives word that his sister-in-law has suddenly committed suicide, with no apparent warning. He returns to his Midwestern hometown of Milhaven to be with his morose, callow brother Philip, and Mark, his fifteen year-old nephew. Shortly after Underhill's arrival, Mark disappears. Underhill is desperate to find the boy, especially when he learns that a brutal pedophilic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity. Tim's asks his friend Tom Pasmore, one of the best PIs around, for assistance in discovering Mark's whereabouts and the identity of the serial killer.

Teenage skateboarder Mark Underhill had become obsessed by a mysterious abandoned house where the killer may have taken refuge. Unbeknownst to Mark, the house, which he had never noticed before, has strong ties to the Underhill family. He and his best buddy, Jimbo, eventually break in to explore, and to unravel the mysteries of this customized building, with its secret passageways and hidden hollows. Mark finds that the house almost talks to him - whispers to him of the horrors that have taken place under its roof. And in this evil place, Mark discovers a soul mate, a ghostly girl who beckons him, coaxing him deeper into the darkness.

"Lost Boy Lost Girl: A Novel" is both a disturbing mystery and a ghost story. It is not a traditional ghost story, however, but a tale of what happens when one believes in ghosts. This is also a novel about hauntings, sinister, filled with remorse and dread. Peter Straub touches on more traditional themes also, like dysfunctional families, the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and the onset of middle age.

The tale is told from multiple viewpoints, and moves back and forth through time and space. It is all pulled together, however, by Tim Underhill's journal entries. Straub's narrative is elegant, compelling and rich. He clearly has a good ear for dialogue, especially as evidenced between the two boys, Mark and Jimbo. He has created here an atmosphere that is at once haunting, (as in a pervasive or lingering force - melancholy), terrifying and hopeful.

I was riveted by this story and found the ending to be spellbinding.
JANA

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Peter Straub Takes Another Stab At Creepiness, May 8, 2006

By	Mr. Sinister (El Cajon, CA USA) - See all my reviews

The first question we have to ask is this: Is Peter Straub an acquired taste? I think the answer is yes. I've been reading Straub on and off for the past few decades, my first taste being The Talisman which he co-wrote with buddy Stephen King. From there I trudged through Ghost Story and Shadowland and Floating Dragon. Straub seemed to me to be an author struggling with his sense of diction and eloquence. A writer that was working in the horror/supernatural genre that was trying way too damn hard to be brilliant and literate and smarter than many of his readers. Well...that doesn't make for a good career when you alienate the masses, especially in his line of work. So...I fell off the Straub bandwagon for quite some time. I remember buying his novel Mystery when it first came out in hardcover and trying to read it, only to put it down time after time. It was nearly a decade later when I finally read it. Koko was the novel that brought me back into the fold. Peter Straub seemed to have gotten the hint and took his fiction down a few levels so that the common reader, the casual reader could manage his prose. Did his work become dumber. Absolutey not. He just wasn't trying to write in the style of Hawthorne anymore. One of the main characters in Koko is Tim Underhill. He's Straub's favorite main character. Along with Millhaven resident recluse and crime-solver Tom Pasmore. Mystery. The Throat. All Millhaven stories. Lost Boy Lost Girl is another. Stephen King proclaims it to be Straub's best novel...we shall see.

Tom Underhill, writer, New York resident, gets distrubing news. His sister in law is dead. She has committed suicide for no apparent reason. He goes back to his hometown of Millhaven for the funeral and to comfort his nephew Mark and his prick of a brother Phillip. Fifteen days later, Mark disappears off the face of the planet and Tim once more returns to Millhaven to see if he can unravel the disappearance of his nephew. The Sherman Park Killer must have claimed him... That's what his father thinks, but uncle Tim isn't so sure. Just before his disappearance and just after his mother's unexplained suicide, Mark becomes fascinated with a creepy abandoned house directly behind his own. On the street over, 3323 Michigan Street sits deserted, its windows clouded with grim, its front porch showing the signs of where some weary neighbor tried in vain to burn it down. What lies within? Mark has to know, because whatever is in there is responsible for his mother's death. The house belonged to infamous serial killer and relative of Mark's deceased mother Joseph Kalender. Filled with secret passages and horrible memories and relics of the attrocities committed there twenty years before, 3323 Michigan Street takes over Mark's attention completely. But what else in in there?

You'll soon see.

Definitely on par with Mystery or The Throat or Mrs. X or The Hellfire Club, Lost Boy Lost Girl is easy to sink into and hard to put down. Genuinely creepy. I've read tons and tons of scary books and this one gave me the willies when reading it at night. One of Staub's finer moments. The only drawback here are the inconsistencies with the plot. Nancy Underhill's suicide is explained, but not that well. Mark's infatuation with the derelict house borders on insanity and yet his best friend Jimbo does little to dissuade his interest. I have to disagree with Mr. King whe he said it was perhaps Staub's best novel. I think Koko still holds that place. But Lost Boy Lost Girl is worth the time and the gooseflesh.

Dig it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Challenging, Engrossing, and Thoroughly Entertaining, February 13, 2005

By	William M Miller (Bronxville, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the style of author T.M. Wright, Straub has created a wonderfully creepy and classy tale of terror. Fascinating and believable characters are thrust into this world of murder, suicide, and kidnapping. Although the timeline is twisted, throwing the reader constantly from the past to the present, I was never lost. I can see why Straub won the Bram Stoker award for this book. His beautiful prose will not easily be outdone. He has definitely made me into a fan.